Feel The Need...For Speed...Again... - Need For Speed Carbon

What do you get when you combine the neon-overloaded, tuner-happy racing scene from Need for Speed Underground with the open-world daytime chases and impossibly hokey plot from Need for Speed Most Wanted? Why, that would be EA's latest entry in the long-running franchise, Need for Speed Carbon. It could be considered the best of both worlds, blending the two biggest NFS games into one package, appeasing both sides of the coin. Or something like that. As such Carbon isn't the game to visit if you want a ton of new ideas or innovative concepts, but it is a worthy $40 pickup for PS2 if you're looking for a somewhat lengthy racing game. Besides, it has drift racing, which makes it crazy awesome again.

Need for Speed Carbon is actually a true sequel to Most Wanted, in terms of plot. If you really care about plot in a racing game, anyway. Your character returns to the town he ran from at the beginning of Most Wanted and the story revolves around solving the mystery of what happened the last night you were in town by taking over city territory and climbing the ranks. I'm not making this up. But it has that same unintentional comedy cheese, just like its predecessor, only there's no Razor Callahan like last time around. I miss Razor. I miss Josie Moran as well, because the new 'NFS Girl' (think Bond Girl), Emmanuelle Vaugier sounds extremely unexcited to be there and doesn't blend in with all the other cheesy actors who seem 'in on the joke' so to speak, and they turn up the unintentional intentional comedy in the voice acting department. Perhaps they could have brought Brooke Burke back but I heard she was stuck in Burger King games now.

Rather than screw around with individual racers like Most Wanted, this time around it's all about territory. Basically each area is owned by a different crew, and the goal is to topple their land by winning races and establishing your dominance. Once you capture all the territories, the boss of each crew comes out and challenges you to a canyon race. Canyon races, beyond being amazingly incredibly super-awesome, are dangerous, crazy, and hugely entertaining diversions that are all about points rather than position. Basically in the 1st round you follow the opponent as close as possible, taking care to not fly over an edge and die a horrible sort of dying, and the 2nd time around you have to keep as far in front of the other guy as possible, and long as you still have points at the end, you win. It's easier to show than discuss, really...but it's fun.

The race variety is still strong, though at least one mode has been dropped in exchange for the return of another. I'm not really sad about it though, because it's the drag races, and those have never been a personal favorite...especially in Most Wanted. Don't get me started. Anyway, in exchange, we now have...Drifting again! Happy day! The art of driving through turns sideways and racking up points has never been better because now you're encouraged to combo drifts in a chain and racking up huge points. It requires concentration and a mastery of the car but boy it's fun. To make things even better, there's Canyon Drifts, that take place on the same roads the boss battles do. My head exploded when I found one of these races, right now I'm typing this on sheer will and The Force because my head isn't here to see the screen. So awesome. Naturally there's still regular races, knockouts, time trials, and the like...but yeah you know what to expect.

Like the last two NFS games, Carbon takes place in wide-open city. However like Most Wanted, you don't need to actually use the city, as everything is selectable off the city map. However if you're the sort who enjoys traveling around for no reason, it's possible, if you wander into enemy territory, that you'll be challenged to a 'random battle' RPG style. Which is kind of interesting. On a side note, you can be challenged for your territory in the same fashion, only it kicks in after you win a race without being able to relax afterwards. The city itself is nothing to really get excited about, as it's pretty much an impossibly neon-ed place with all the usual districts and some crazy turns when you're in a race. It looks good enough for PS2 though, pushing the hardware to its limits in many ways.

When in a Career Mode race, for the first time you're not alone in the battle. In the mix of four cars (taken down from 8 in the PS3/360 versions, a sad happening but not worth spending an extra $20 for that version), one will be a crew member you hire for three different purposes. In the beginning you acquire your first lackey who serves as a Blocker, wherein they'll sacrifice themselves to take out a rival car so you can win. Along the way, a Scout joins up, and their job is to find shortcuts and the best routes and racing lines to make things easier. Finally, there's a Drafter class that will speed up to get ahead of you, then let you suck up their slipstream for some more MPH. It's an interesting concept, but almost unnecessary since I barely used them. The only use that they had for me was their crazy speed in the Speedtrap races, as they seemed to get 20 MPH more than anybody else when hitting the cameras (because if they win, it counts as a victory for you). Crazy. All they really do is make it easier to win with 1 less opponent, even if they have a tendency to get in your way and cause wrecks.

Sadly, easy is the name of Carbon's game, because it's not really a challenging racer. Basically, long as you have the right car from the right class, you can breeze through the entire Career in about 10 hours or so...not bad but yet not much challenge doing so. To its credit, once you get about 75% complete the game does ramp it up, but only because you have top-flight opposition and you may be stuck with a B class vehicle at that time. Otherwise, because the game doesn't ask for crazy prerequisites like a Bounty (like the insane things asked for in Most Wanted, progressing through is like a hot knife through butter, even if you're merely competent at the game. Even the cop chases that randomly occur during races or while free-riding don't have the same feeling of dread that Most Wanted has, and most can be escaped pretty quickly.

EA touted 'Autosculpt' as a revolution in car modification...but it's largely forgettable. While EA has offered a ton of cars in three different styles – muscles, tuners, and exotics, the upgrading process works the same – win races, get money, unlock upgrades, buy upgrades. Before the game came out EA made it sound like the process of buying design parts were gone, replaced by Autosculpt. But that's not the case, as you still gotta buy parts and then, if one of the crew members you hire has the ability to perform the Autosculpting, you can modify parts a bit...yet it's not really a big deal. It's just something EA tried to hype up but it doesn't even come close to living up to it. Which isn't really a surprise. Hopefully if they do it again they'll figure out how to make it work...it's a decent idea.

Final Thought
Need for Speed Carbon doesn't rewrite the book on the franchise, and thus the game doesn't feel all that fresh and many will find the formula tired now. For everyone else, it's a fun game that runs on the easy side but looks good and has a solid car selection, from an old-school Camaro, an Aston Martin, even a Lamborghini floating around to offer variety. Compared to its next-gen counterparts, it lacks online play and has half the possible opponents, the $20 price difference works out just fine because Carbon isn't worth $60. But $40 is just right for a game like this – a solid PS2 game late in its lifecycle that pushes the hardware, doesn't drown you in a horrible soundtrack (believe it or not!) is lengthy for its genre, and winds up a good weekend waster.